


Miles away and a few months late

by heavenisalibrary



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4855169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve never really explicitly discussed the terms of their marriage. But she’s a fifty-first century girl, not to mention a Time Lord, not to mention Amy’s daughter, and so he’s never really assumed that they were monogamous — which wasn’t, of course, to be confused with fidelity. He hasn’t ever really thought about it in depth, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miles away and a few months late

**Author's Note:**

> In light of Moffat's other quote about River — about how she has shelves of marriages somewhere — a quote I very much like, here, have a short incredibly, disgustingly fluffy fic about the Doctor accidentally third-wheeling on River's date. It's like, really fluffy. Like. REALLY.

The Doctor finds it difficult, the first time. He doesn’t want to find it difficult, because of course he does this sort of thing all the time. He loves and respects and admires and, yes, needs River in ways he hasn’t anybody else in an incredibly long time — she’s just like him in so many ways, and she’s not the only one who’s bespoke. He couldn’t’ve been a better match for her if the Silence had molded him in their hands, too. But he isn’t always with her. In fact, there are decades at a time that she’s in his life but not in his life. And he can’t ever ask her how old she is — not that it would really mean anything if he knew, since he never finds her at the same point in her own time stream — so he doesn’t know. She ages like a Time Lord, which is to say she could be forty or she could be four hundred, or more, since he’s not entirely clear on how many regenerations she had prior to Mels. So he couldn’t hazard a guess if he wanted to how long they’re together, generally speaking, for her. He imagines that it’s a long time, which means — for her — there are also probably long period of time when they’re apart.

They’ve never really explicitly discussed the terms of their marriage. But she’s a fifty-first century girl, not to mention a Time Lord, not to mention Amy’s daughter, and so he’s never really assumed that they were monogamous — which wasn’t, of course, to be confused with fidelity. He hasn’t ever really thought about it in depth, though.

He did come to take her out on a date once, and found her rather preemptively cross with him, and his expectation that she’d drop everything and fly away with him, after she’d ended a date prematurely in deference to his place in her life. They’d been apart for quite a while, he thought, after that, but when she finally forgave him, he assured her that she could date whomever she pleased. But even then, it had been an abstract — of course River could date whomever she wanted. Of course she’d be out and about the stars, getting tangled up in nuptials with world leaders, snogging notorious pirates, shacked up with legendary writers. She’s River bloody Song. He wouldn’t expect anything less. She even mentions the men and women and theys and thems in her life from time to time, off-handedly. He doesn’t tend to pay much attention to it, even still. It’s not like he’s ever able, inexplicably, to go very long without kissing or being kissed by somebody, and he’s not about to become her jailor after all they’ve been through.

Still, thinking about it and hearing mentions of roguish Time Agents and the fearsome Constance Markievicz and Nestene Duplicates with swappable heads and all manner of others is entirely different from strolling around a winter fair on an ice planet eight thousand years in River’s future only to bump, quite literally, into his wife nestled comfortably into the side of some woman.

He doesn’t know how to react, at first. River looks up at him, mouth slightly agape, as he starts to reach out for her — out of habit — but then thinks better of it, stepping slightly back and shoving his hands in his pockets for want of something better to do with them. His eyes drop to the way River’s fingers are tangled with the woman’s, and when he looks back up River’s stepping toward him, leaning up on her toes to press a kiss to the very corner of his mouth. He closes his eyes, briefly, trying to figure out what he should be doing.

“Hello, sweetie,” she says, a bit quietly. Her eyes are cautious as she regards him, but she grabs hold of the woman’s hand once again the moment she steps back beside her, making it quite clear where she stands at the moment. Which is fine. They didn’t have a date. She wasn’t deserting him somewhere to spend time with someone else. This was simply an accident.

“River,” he says, summoning a smile.

“This is Gera,” River says, still watching him closely. “My girlfriend.”

The Doctor knows that River’s waiting for him to give her an indication as to whether or not he’s a threat she’s going to have to neutralize, or if he’s going to let her be. Of course it’s the latter, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Knowing his wife has other partners from time to time is very different from meeting one. He tugs at his bowtie and shakes out his shirtsleeves, a bit of a nervous tic to try and reign his pettier impulses in before he relaxes into a real smile and stuck out his hand.

“Hullo,” he says, “I’m the Doctor.”

“Oh,” Gera says, with a brilliant smile accompanying her firm handshake, “you’re the husband.”

 

 

 

The Doctor agrees to get a drink with them, mostly because River looks so pleased when he plays nice with her girlfriend. Who, for whatever it’s worth, is lovely and brilliant and just a little bit naughty. Gera’s the sort of woman he’s swoop into his TARDIS in an instant, and so he understands the appeal, even if he doesn’t love to see his wife doing it — although turnabout, and all. She also looks a great deal as he imagines Mels would’ve looked in a decade or two, which makes him giggle the moment Gera leaves for the bathroom and he can explain.

“River, she looks like —”

“Oh, shut up,” River says, “mum said the same thing. I don’t want to hear it from you, too.”

“I’ve heard of self-love but that’s…” he trails off, giggling again. “That’s taking it a bit far.”

“Well, you’ve seen me,” River says, “wouldn’t you? And anyway, don’t act as though you don’t fancy yourself rotten in every regeneration, we both know it’s true.”

“Shut up,” he says, sitting up a bit straighter with a huff. She raises a brow at him. “Alright, fine, but this one is particularly nice, and don’t _you_ act as though you don’t agree, River Song, because I’ve got rather convincing anecdotal evidence otherwise.”

She just grins at him, reaching out to the small coffee table that sits between them to grab her mulled wine, wrapping her hands around the warm cup and sipping it slowly as she leans back on the silver booth she sits on. The restaurant is, like most things on the ice planet, resplendent, made of a combination of metal and ice, draped in thick furs to keep customers from sticking to the seats, perhaps. It’s odd, though, to sit in a chair on the opposite side of the table from River. Usually he’d be in the booth beside her, complaining about his wine and scolding her for wandering hands. River must see him frown as he reaches out for his glass, jealousy filtering through his thoughts.

“This doesn’t change anything,” River says, “you know that I see other people and you know how I feel about you. Neither one impacts the other. For me.”

“I know,” he says, “I trust you. I want you to — to do whatever you want to do.”

“I’m hearing a but.”

“Not a but,” he says, shaking his head at her, “a but implies that I’m about to ask you to change something, and I’m not. _But_ it doesn’t mean it’s easy, for me, to see you happy with someone else. I’m happy you’re happy, of course, and Gera seems brilliant… and I want to sit on your side of the booth and make you shout at me for putting my cold hands under your coat and kiss you because I haven’t seen you in weeks.” He pauses, gesturing vaguely to her before he repeats her words: “Neither one impacts the other.”

“Okay,” River says, looking at him cautiously, “good.”

“Really, River,” he says. “I’m all right. We’re all right.”

“Yeah?” she says.

“Yeah,” he says.

She’s grinning at him then, so broadly, and he loves the lines around her mouth and the way the bluish light of the restaurant makes her eyes resplendently green in contrast, especially when she’s happy, and he loves how adorable she looks in her winter coat with her mug clasped between her small hands, held against the space between her hearts as though it’ll keep her warm, and he loves the way she looks at him like he’s familiar, like he’s hers, like she loves him. He does want to kiss her, and sidle against her on her side of the bench and act like she’s the one cuddling into his side, and he wants to taste the spice from the wine on her lips and feel her curls, damp with speckles of snow, but he doesn’t have to touch her to feel her warmth, and he doesn’t have to be her only to be hers. The thoughts settle in him, deep down and warm as he sips the mulled wine, cringing only slightly.

“Thank you, by the way, for telling her about me,” he says as she laughs quietly at the face he pulls as he sets the wine down. “You didn’t have to.”

“Oh, but I did,” River says, her grin fading into a wry smirk. “Gera may be the first girlfriend you’ve met from your end, but you’ve met more than a few others from mine. Even when you’re on your best behavior, we’re not very good at — well. We’re not very good at not being married, even when we’re not married. It was my fault. It wasn’t fair of me to hide you like some dirty little secret.”

“Certainly not little,” the Doctor mumbles under his breath, crossing his legs and jiggling his foot restlessly. He grins when River doesn’t make a sound, because he can feel her rolling her eyes, and looks up at her with a smirk through his hair.

“Definitely a dirty old man, though,” River says.

“At least I don’t look it.”

“Not in this body, you don’t,” she says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, straightening.

“Spoilers, honey,” River says.

They lapse into silence for a few moments as they sip their drinks. The Doctor wonders whether Gera really went to the bathroom or if she’d perhaps gotten lost, but when he glances back at River, she’s just looking at him with that small, soft small he wants to commit to his memory so he has it on the back of his eyelids on every dark day — the little expression that makes him feel like a person, like someone worth caring for, and so he doesn’t comment.

“This is nice,” he says.

“What?” River asks, skeptically. “Third-wheeling on my date?”

“No,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Spending time with you. Even if we weren’t — you know, even if we hadn’t —”

“Spit it out, my love.”

“I’d still want to spend time with you. See you. Even if I weren’t the husband.”

“Me too,” she says. “Always.”

It feels like too much sentiment, suddenly, like the sort of interaction he steadfastly runs away from — he’s well-versed in using words as weapons, he knows how to hide behind pretty speeches and flowery phrases constructed to distract from whatever feeble emotional capacity he really has, but to use his words honestly and plainly to communicate how he feels about River — that’s a challenge he’s yet to take on. He clears his throat, looking down at his wrist as he tugs at the sleeve of his blazer. Luckily, Gera chooses that moment to return, brushing past him and settling onto the booth next to River. She crosses her legs so that her knee knocks against River’s.

“So,” he says, drawing on all of those distracting walls of words, “Gera. River tells me that you’re a Time Agent. It sounds fascinating. I knew a Time Agent once, you know. Awful fellow. Sort of immortal, very unnerving, you know how it is. I’m sure you’re not like that, though. River has good taste.”

“Sometimes,” River says, giving him that pointed look she always gives him when he’s wittering like an idiot, and that for some reason resonates deeply with him. Even sitting cozily on the booth with her girlfriend tucked into her side, even living her life that is so separate from him, so different from the way their lives are together, she still treats him the same. She’s still alternately irritated, exasperated, and amused by the weird things he says, still ready with a barb to take him down a notch at any given moment. She’s still River, and nothing changes with her or between them when she’s just being River with someone else.

“Be nice,” Gera says, pinching River’s shoulder playfully, before turning to the Doctor to answer his question at length, all charm and wit with River’s hand resting on her thigh, and none of that bothers him even a bit.

 

 

Drinks last a few hours, until he can tell Gera’s getting a bit tipsy — he wonders how River explains her Time Lord physiology — and he can’t pretend to drink mulled wine any longer. They leave the restaurant together, and say their goodbyes outside of the door. It’s an odd feeling, to end the night saying goodbye to River, about to watch her walk off with somebody else, but he finds after everything he’s been thinking and feeling, and the deft way River handled everything, and how lovely Gera is, he can tamp down on the jealousy. He can even manage to be relatively pleasant company, he thinks, and based on the fact that River hasn’t pulled her gun or slapped him yet, he’s probably right.

He hugs Gera tightly — she really is lovely — and promises to give River the a rare book he’d mentioned over the course of their conversation to pass off to her. He stops short of offering to take her on a trip in the TARDIS at some point, because that feels like crossing a line, and he can see River actually slapping him later for that one. Then, Gera politely waves to them both, stepping a little ways away to let them say goodbye.

“Thank you for behaving, sweetie,” she says with another heart-stealing smile, which would’ve been more effective if she hadn’t already run off with both.

“When do I ever misbehave? No, don’t answer that,” he says. He steps toward her, reaching out to rub her arms as she shivers slightly. He thinks about pulling her to him for a goodbye kiss — surely it wouldn’t shock Gera, who already knows they’re married? — but thinks better of it at the last second and just tightens his grip on her arms and hauls her to him, wrapping his arms around her back and burying his face in her hair. He hugs her tightly, making sure she feels it even through the layers of her coat, and she burrows into him, squeezing him to her and pressing her lips to the side of his neck.

“I’ll see you soon, Doctor Song,” he says as he pulls away, brushing his lips against her cheek as she pulls past him, lingering in his personal space.

She smiles up at him.

“You will at that,” she says, “I think you might want to pop ‘round ancient Egypt. I hear Cleopatra’s a real charmer.”

“Ah, well,” he says, “guess I’ll have to investigate that claim to myself. Can’t possibly leave that to the archaeologist.”

“Oh, shut up,” she says. “I have reliable sources.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asks, his cheeks aching a bit from smiling so hard as she steps away from him, walking backward toward Gera. “What did they say, then?”

River laughs low in her throat, warm and dirty enough to make his cheeks flush.

“I believe they said, ‘your majesty,’” River says, leaving him to smile at her back as she loops her arm through Gera’s and recedes into the crowd.

Spinning around and heading back toward the TARDIS, he supposes now is as good a time as any to visit the pyramids...

 


End file.
